Internet Tablet Hacker Edition pushed at Chinook level

If you are adventurous power user willing to try out unstable releases then go for it and get Chinook/OS2008 level software in your 770. Don't miss the known issues and instructions below.

If you are a more conservative user and/or you want your 770 to be as reliable as it is now, then you are encouraged to keep using the last HE software based on Bora/OS2007. There is now a patched version allowing the change of language, a fix relevant to those users willing to have the interface in a language different than English.

About making Chinook/OS2008 fit in the 770: it has not been easy and the result is not fully satisfactory. All built-in applications start and run including VoIP but overall the device is not responsive and reliable enough for serious usage.

Hardware limitations are clear in certain circumstances, extra swap memory is required to get a decent performance, the device reboots from time to time... This release is definitely not recommended to end users and not even to users depending on this device alone. We are releasing it to show how far we have gone but for us this is a proof that the Hacker Edition has reached its limit. Still, the maemo community might find it interesting and some of you perhaps want to experiment with it. This release goes for you.

Known issues

Browser works nicely but there is no Flash.

Music player works nicely but video playback is unreliable.

It needs at least 16 MB of swap memory in the external memory card, much better if you allocate more.

No serious test has been done on third party applications. Some work, some don't. For example Maemo Mapper works, while Canola doesn't even boot.

Instructions to mount a swap partition on the external memory

Get root permissions (sudo gainroot) and then edit the file /etc/osso-af-init/af-defines.sh:

Of course I immediately installed RTCOMM 2 on it and the reboot loop I got into could be cured by

mv .../usr/bin/metalayer-crawler .../usr/bin/metalayer-crawler.off

from inside my 2007HE living on an MMC.

If the sound issues (no feedback on volume change, e.g.) which might also be related to the Skype "no shared codec" problem could be solved, this really could get my preferred platform even on the 770. I really like the integrated RTCOMM 2 instant messaging.

installing skype gives the message that it cann't be installed. It is than installed anaway. I can login, but are not able to talk. Skype test call: No shared codec. Skype out: Error soundrecording.
Using Gizmo: No sound. I see that others managed to get Skype working?

I think much of the problem are apps being compiled for the later revision of the ARM that is in the N800, and failing on the 770 with an illegal operation fault. Either we are going to need to see applications built to support the OMAP 1710 or we are going to have to see a kernel module to support emulating the missing instructions (with the inevitable loss of speed).

At a minimum, it seems to me that a rebuild of the gstreamer libraries for the older OMAP might allow the media player to play video: as I understand it, the video decode has been moved from the DSP to the ARM core.

I tried it for a couple of days and then flashed back to os2006!! Actually I found it remarkably better than the above anouncement had me believe! I found the browser was very useable and if you did not do anything for about a minute after boot up, it did not crash (i.e. remained stable)! I flashed back to os2006 because the media players (ukmp, canola) don't work on this. Any future releases will be eagerly awaited!

I tried this release in the hope of running skype.
installing skype worked from command after trying to install it using the app-manager for a few times.
It gives an error when it tries to do sound recording. The browser is very slow, you have done what was possible and it was not enough.

The announcement sounds a bit gloomy. In reality it is not that bad. Yes, it is slower than 2007HE but first OS2007 firmware was slow too. Many thanks for this and please don't stop :-) It is great we have Chinook on 770. Even if some people may not choose this as their primary system is is still very useful for running something available for Chinook only (as secondary system on MMC) or as a base for some custom special purpose application developed with Chinook SDK (and Vala for instance). Definitely not wasted time.

I also hope OS2008 will be optimized a bit more even for N8x0 and future OS2008HE will benefit from it too.